BPSWatch website: "Querying what goes on at the British Psychological Society"

[Sly Saint]

I just came across this website. Not to be confused with 'cbtwatch'.

It describes itself as
"Querying what goes on at the British Psychological Society"

set up in 2021 see this post

The British Psychological Society: Failing the Public
19th Sep 2021AdminBPSWatch


Pat Harvey posts….

Because of their acknowledged expertise, Psychologists enjoy professional autonomy; responsibility is an essential element of autonomy. Psychologists must accept appropriate responsibility for what is within their power, control or management. Awareness of responsibility ensures that the trust of others is not abused, the power of influence is properly managed and that duty towards others is always paramount.

Statement of values: Psychologists value their responsibilities to persons and peoples, to the general public, and to the profession and science of Psychology, including the avoidance of harm and the prevention of misuse or abuse of their contribution to society.

BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct, 2018.

A dysfunctional Society

The British Psychological Society’s serious governance dysfunction, the central concern of BPSWatch (1) has important consequences, not only for the way it behaves towards its own membership, but ultimately in how it functions in relation to its responsibilities to the wider community. A Royal Chartered Charity, (2) its formal Objects may not explicitly state that it has that latter duty and responsibility to wider society, but the second Object requires it to have a Code of Ethics and Conduct (3). That Code includes the statement shown above and only a legal weasel or a BPS bureaucrat might, if pushed into a corner, attempt to deny that the Charter does not require a duty to the public at large.

The growing awareness of the organisational dysfunction and the wilful withholding of information about this brought us together to form BPSWatch and the associated Twitter account @psychsocwatchuk. Whilst we and others have as yet failed to create sufficient pressure to see the ongoing involvement of the Charity Commission with the BPS over its governance problems escalate into a full Statutory Inquiry, we have helped to get information out into the mainstream and other media: The Times, The Telegraph and Third Sector. They will no doubt renew and sharpen their interest as anticipated legal cases become public. Meanwhile the individual concerns initially brought to us about specific policy topics which have been mishandled remain unresolved. It is our contention, and that of the complainants who have contacted us, that each of these is a matter of public concern and public protection.

IAPT – BPSWatch

(I have looked into this; maybe someone knows what has happened in the interim?)
@Joan Crawford
(Might be of interest with regards to Cochrane now(?))

 

[bobbler]

I just came across this website. Not to be confused with 'cbtwatch'.

It describes itself as
"Querying what goes on at the British Psychological Society"

set up in 2021 see this post

IAPT – BPSWatch

(I have looked into this; maybe someone knows what has happened in the interim?)
@Joan Crawford
(Might be of interest with regards to Cochrane now(?))

This is fascinating well worth scrolling down to this and reading in full

highlights well how seemingly a boring topic governance seems to be a major issue behind lots of what’s happened to us or has influenced our situation

the term capture ends up being used too

as a novice in understanding governance but increasingly interested by it I like that it underlines that good vs bad governance is the difference between a society that actually represents the considered range of views of professionals in an area that affects legal cases as well as medical, political and so on potential agendas being able to be independently commented on re harm or who is lying or misled or what is accurate vis a vis where debates are and what evidence is actually applicable

vs bad governance leading to potential fir things to be plated by people sneaking in on jobs others don’t want to do in order to get power when their pet area comes up for ‘policy’. The tactics or habits or issues seem pretty familiar to things we’ve seen of things just being closed down or never completed and sophist responses to complaints etc


So I’m interested whatever the organisation to see quite intricate discussions of how different governance translates into on-the-ground phenomena/actions we might be used to seeing - because I guess everywhere is vulnerable to it to some extent but we’ve seen ourselves being the butt of such gaps more than most.

and because this sort of thing has been a topic in me-specific organisations recently too. So knowing more perhaps ruases the question of what the right governance looks like for areas that are dealing with our issues - being aware of the balance of time/energy and access if people have ME vs things being vulnerable to ‘interests’ because of those very things (keep ignoring us and there’s nothing we can do as the less ill who have an agenda can just wear us out).

 

[Kitty]

The list of blog posts makes it look like an extended row that revolves around identity politics and gender issues. They seem to be arguing from deeply entrenched positions.

The blogs are too long for me to read, it would need more work than my eyes can manage to figure out what's actually going on. That means I'm probably being unfair to the authors in reducing it to a single topic.